Life Contrived

I live with cigarettes in my back pocket. I twirl one between my fingers, curl hair that lingers on my forehead, brush it away and hope you’ll play this game of Living Dangerous. We knock wrists, the flask in my fist spills like the chills running down my spine, aligned with the wall, though I know I don’t get chills much anymore. Before, it was life lived languidly but now it is life derived, life contrived to live fanatically, emphatically I live with cigarettes in my back pocket. Can’t seem to stop the thoughts running through my mind They are blind, entwined with your movement I relent, I breathe in char, lungs fill with tar endorphins release, functions cease I raise the flask to my lips, eclipse reality false actuality, and soon between becomes the space, the place where there is no you beside me, now you abide alongside society but I will not. I raise wrists, clutch fists persist, and swallow skyfulls of smoke. I live with cigarettes in my back pocket.

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